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If you’ve frequented these pages over the years, you know that all sorts of companies, many of them financial institutions, have stopped doing business with firearms makers, retailers, and other companies associated with guns. They were urged to adopt that policy by the Obama administration’s Operation Choke Point which threatened banks and other firms that did business with the gun industry, legal cannabis sellers, porn producers, and other disfavored businesses.

One of those companies that cut ties with gun businesses was Intuit. The company that most people know for its Quickbooks small business software also provides credit card processing, payroll and other services. In 2018 Intuit was one of many companies that caved to the pressure of the ObamaBots after the Parkland shooting and severed many of its firearm-related business relationships, particularly those that made or sold guns online.

As we reported at the time, they even shut down the account of Gunsite Academy, crippling its ability to take electronic payments as well as freezing and and reversing tens of thousands of dollars of previously authorized transactions (Intuit eventually agreed to pay Gunsite for the inconvenience and interruption of its business.)

Today comes news that Intuit has decided to reverse its more than five-year-old policy and will once again magnanimously allow gun-related businesses to use its services. From Fox News . . .

The reversal comes in the wake of an oversight investigation launched by staff of [Texas Senator Ted] Cruz on the Commerce Committee into business practices from the software company.

In a letter to Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi, exclusively obtained by FOX Business, Cruz described the QuickBooks policy, which was in effect until Aug. 1, 2023, that said businesses engaged in “guns and firearms manufacturing… [are]… ineligible (or may become ineligible)” for QuickBooks’ payroll services.

A similar policy was also apparently in effect for businesses engaged in “mail order, phone, or online… firearms and weapons sales.”

In the letter, Cruz wrote, “My office became aware of these discriminatory policies when Dawson Precision, a Texas company that manufactures small firearm parts, informed my office that Intuit had, without warning, canceled its subscription to QuickBooks payroll services.”

“Dawson Precision only discovered what had happened after it submitted payroll…Intuit later said that it canceled Dawson Precision’s account because, as a firearm manufacturer, it was in violation of Intuit’s acceptable use policy,” Cruz added.

Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz, R-Texas (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

According to the Fox report, Intuit’s hand may have been forced by JP Morgan Chase.

Cruz, however, did not lay blame entirely at the feet of Intuit, instead alleging that one of the company’s banking partners – JPMorgan – had “demanded that Intuit create and enforce bank policies regarding firearm sellers and manufacturers.”

Commerce Committee staff, upon hearing of these revelations from Intuit, then held a briefing with both banks where JPMorgan acknowledged being the source of the services policy.

The other bank involved — which should surprise no one — was the assiduously anti-gun Bank of America. B of A was one of a number of big money center banks that happily went along with the Obama administration’s attempts to squeeze the gun industry.

“Intuit clarified that Bank of America required it to prohibit gun manufacturers from using QuickBooks payroll services…Bank of America, however, denied that it had ever given Intuit any instructions relating to firearm manufacturers or sellers. Intuit insisted that Bank of America did. Regardless of who originated these discriminatory policies against gun manufacturers, Intuit was right to end them” Cruz wrote. 

Quite the little pissing contest there. Neither JP Morgan Chase nor B of A wanted to be fingered as the perpetrators, likely because many states have now enacted FIND (firearm industry non-discrimination) laws that disqualify anti-gun financial institutions from underwriting bond issues and collecting the lucrative fees that go along with that business. That means a lot of lost revenue, hitting them where it really hurts.

So while the Biden administration’s war on gun ownership continues to rage on this is a win for the good guys, thanks to the pushback against anti-gun financial discrimination.

The NSSF is certainly pleased . . .

NSSF, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, applauds U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for directly addressing the ongoing and illegal discrimination of the firearm industry by major banks and payment processors. Fox Business reported on this continued discriminatory practice of major banking institutions and payment processors refusing services because officials in those financial sectors politically disagree with Second Amendment rights.

“Discrimination against firearm manufacturers and retailers is not a new phenomenon but it is long past time this practice is ended,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Major banks, and the payment processors they support, benefit from taxpayer dollars to insure they stay afloat, including the multi-trillion-dollar bailout they enjoyed at taxpayer expense. The discriminatory practice of denying banking services to a Constitutionally-protected industry with which they politically disagree is an abuse of those taxpayer funds. American taxpayers should not be forced to fund banks that actively work to erase their rights. The Second Amendment is not for sale.”

Sen. Cruz, in his capacity as Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, recently wrote to Intuit, a payment processor, that reversed their discriminatory policies of denying QuickBooks services to firearm manufacturers and retailers. The change came only after Senate inquiries into the discriminatory practices. Intuit claimed the policy was directed to them by JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America, both banks that hold discriminatory policies against the firearm industry and refuse banking services in an effort to starve them of essential financial services.

NSSF supports legislative efforts to halt these discriminatory practices by financial service providers, including the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act (S. 428/H.R. 53), introduced by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.). This vital legislation would end the ability of corporate entities to profit from taxpayer-funded federal contracts while discriminating against a Constitutionally-protected industry at the same time.

NSSF also supports the Fair Access to Banking Act (S. 293/H.R. 2743), introduced by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and U.S. Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.). These bills would require banks to provide access to services, capital and credit based on the objective risk assessment of individual customers, rather than subjective broad-based decisions affecting whole categories or classes of customers.

 

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38 COMMENTS

  2. I get complying with the governments hammer. Despots have been using the technique to run their tyrannies since the first tribal chieftain.

    But when companies do this sort of thing on their own are they really gaining more customers than they lose? Are they being cut checks from Bloomberg himself to offset the losses?

    When you have to answer to stockholders ideology cannot trump revenue and as all the fund managers walking back from ESG have demonstrated ideology alone does not generate revenue. Unless of course that ideology is being bankrolled by interfering billionaires playing Ceasar or government laundering taxpayer dollars to your corporation through incentive schemes. Though neither are sustainable for all that long.

    • NO, complying with extralegal dictates is exactly no different than the O’Biden executive branch telling social media companies who they have to remove from their platforms, in violation of Sec. 203. And then loosing in court after its proven to be a violation of the first amendment. This is in direct contravention of the second for exactly the same reason.

  3. Good for them. I haven’t changed my own policy though. I won’t use their products or others from companies on my own “choke point” list

    I’ll give them another look in 10 years or so. Maybe, just maybe, if they keep their panties perfectly clean I might let them off of the hook. But I have a long memory. It’s doubtful.

    • I agree with you, Nikita. Just because this bank changed its policy, does not mean it changed its mind on guns. They may have just figured out they are losing money with their anti-gun policy, and only want gun owners money and business to stay afloat. Let them put their money where their mouths are, and plow the pro-gun policy for a few years first. For I would not trust a bank any more than I would trust a politician.

  6. I use QuickBooks in our business, because that’s what my CPA uses. I do not use any of their subscription services, partly because they’re expensive and partly because I don’t want to be beholden to them or allow them to have continuous access to my data. I use the standalone desktop version.

    • “I wish companies that want to do business in the USA were held to the rules of our Constitution.”

      If we want “our” companies to be free to do business, we must also support businesses not being controlled by government, and do business with whom they please.

      The real issue is the feds coercing private businesses into being an unpaid agent of the federal government.

    • .40 cal
      Yep, wouldn’t send the Nat Guard for Wa DC, but will for this.

      Shipping the illegal invaders to the libidiots back yard was a master stroke.
      NEVER underestimate the NIMBY effect..

  12. When a company refuses to do business with a gun store, manufacturer, etc, that company should let people know of this refusal so that a BOYCOTT can be organized.

  13. “[National Shooting Sports Foundation] applauds U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for directly addressing the ongoing and illegal discrimination …”

    Let me get this straight: discrimination is alive and well today? Does that mean huge swaths of our population are doing what the human race has done for all recorded History: declare some entity to be “disfavored” (for whatever arbitrary reason tickles their fancy) and then proceed to exploit, suppress, and abuse the disfavored entity as much as they can get away with?

    In other words huge swaths of our population love discrimination and bigotry and wield it against their disfavored entities–and only significant legal and physical force stops them. Same as it ever was.

    But, not to worry: a certain TTaG commenter keeps telling us that we can eliminate discrimination and bigotry that has existed forever and continues to flourish today–if we just educate the masses about discrimination and bigotry that existed 163 years ago. (Meaning that we can somehow change fundamental human nature–an impossibility–via History lessons about human nature.)

    • Bigotry.
      Is derived from the three words Big Old Tree and a big old tree always drowns out the sunlight for the little ones until it gets to old, dies, and falls over.

    • Nice, obscure reference to Gilda Radnor’s character on SNL (Emily Litella).
      “No, Emily, it’s INTUIT not Inuit.”
      “Oh, that’s very different. Never mind.”

  15. With a five year hiatus blocking their business, if other solutions more amenable to the firearms industry and individuals have been found, stick with them and don’t go back.

  17. Payment processors….banks….I have done IT work for them. Cubicles are populated with Gun owners, faithful folk, family-centered, home-schoolers….and some left-wing-nuts, also. The population of Cubicle-ville ends up being victimized by their own company policies.

    If, as an IT consultant, I was asked to implement intelligence and tech to screen-out gun-related purchases, I would refuse. I have already done so for programs to mandate vaccine tracking. Instead I had my employer assign someone else.

    I will not comply.

  18. RE: “Discrimination against firearm manufacturers and retailers is not a new phenomenon but it is long past time this practice is ended,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. ”

    Long past due? Discrimination in America has walked hand in hand with Gun Control for Centuries. And that same old sick oppressive Gun Control mindset is alive and well today. To bury Gun Control the public must see Gun Control in the same light as its sidekick mr. noose. Failure to Define Gun Control by its History is what needs to end, Larry.

  19. “According to the Fox report, Intuit’s hand may have been forced by JP Morgan Chase…”

    To the surprise of no one. Who was it at JPMC that made those decisions, however? How hard would it be for a government agency to give them some ‘advice’ like it did when they told twitter to shut down certain people? And like when the “Patriot Act” basically turned banks into law enforcement for the government?

    The only thing that can help this problem, as much as it may pain some to recognize, is regulation. No, not a bunch of new government agencies with SWAT teams and budgets. No, much simpler: treat financial institutions like other vital services and infrastructure with a form of common carrier status. As long as a business is legal in the jurisdiction, they can’t be shut out.

    When you call the electric company, they don’t get to decide not to serve you because they don’t like your politics. You don’t get told “sorry, it’s a private corporation, you should just build your own nuclear power plant and electrical network. That would be stupid and impossible. Same thing for phone companies and mail delivery. So why do we accept that it’s okay to be told that for payment processors and banks? They’re just as vital in this century as electric was in the last. They’re also set up so that no one can ‘start your own payment processor.’ Three companies have the entire sector locked, by design.

    It doesn’t matter if the government can’t shut you down if someone in the government can say one word to a couple of CEOs (who are funded significantly with government contracts) and suddenly these “private” companies can make it so you can’t actually use the financial system.

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